Students play on swing sets, outside of San Jacinto Elementary School in Deer Park (601 E. 8th Street, which is located across 255 from refineries.) Tuesday, March 31, 2009. ( Karen Warren / Chronicle )

Amanda Posterick, Metzler Elementary teacher, right, goes over a drawing with Metzler kindergartner Kailynn Fosdick, left, during class on Thursday, April 3, at Metzler Elementary. Posterick was announced as a finalist for the H-E-B Excellence in Education award and presented with a $1,000 check on Thursday.

The Humble Elementary School library was full of students and parents for the Reading Theater Club Feb. 9. The program was designed for the school by librarian Linda Avina to encourage reading and together time for families. At this particular Reading Theater Club, the families made bookmarks and sent letters to soldiers serving overseas.

During Abilities Awareness Day activities in the campus gym, Silvercrest Elementary students (from left) Addison Williams, Will Wang and Cayden Crouchet practice buttoning and unbuttoning shirts while wearing gloves. Held March 3-4, the Abilities Awareness Day activities helped Silvercrest students appreciate the strengths of people who are blind, deaf, wheelchair-bound and more.

Lakewood Elementary School second graders (first row, from left) Julian Worrell, Jasmine Harrah, Addie Kell, (back row) Emmett Pratt, Elayna Nguyen, Kira Miller, and Kanak Sawant developed a plan to beautify their campus while learning about nature. They began the project by cleaning the flower beds and preparing the mulch. They selected flowers and plants to add color to the front of their school. A total of 26 students volunteered for the beautification project.

Jaime González of the Katy Prairie Conservancy distributes shovels and gloves to students from Frostwood Elementary before setting them to planting bee balm and Wild Virginia Rye grass in the pocket prairie at the School. Photo By R. Clayton McKee

Deer Park Elementary Children look for the Chimpanzee's in the Chimpanzee exhibit at the Houston Zoo in Houston, Texas. Unfortunately because of the cold weather most of the chimps were in their dens keeping warm .

Travis Hayes, ﻿an activity coordinator, looks on as Marc Pedraza, from left, Joaquin Izaguirre, Roy Johnson and Aden Sitta play with robotic cubes last week during an after-school program at Magnolia Elementary School in Pearland.

The rain could not dampen the celebration at James F. Bay Elementary as Clear Creek ISD administrators, students, families and community friends gathered to honor the school’s 2014 National Blue Ribbon School designation on Friday, November 21, 2014.

Beneke Elementary School student Sade Suvnalde anxiously waits to lead a group of students onto the stage for a skit during a celebration of the school's 30th anniversary Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016, in Spring.

Ten-year-old April Garcia, a 5th-grader at Sinclair Elementary School, works on her math test during the Education Rainbow Math Challenge at Scarborough High School Saturday, Jan. 30, 2010, in Houston. Over 600 kids from 45 different schools competed in the math activities.
Each year, students, teachers, parents, and more than 150 volunteers from several companies in the Houston area come together to celebrate math and science at the annual Rainbow Challenge Math Competition. Students from third through eighth grades in the Central Region participate in science experiments and work both individually and in groups to solve complex math problems. This is the twenty-first competition that the Educational Rainbow Challenge group has organized for HISD under the leadership of Fred Ho and Cecil Fong in order to promote interest in math and science for students in grades 3-8.
( Michael Paulsen / Chronicle )

TONY BULLARD: FOR THE CHRONICLE
PATRIOTIC MOMENT: Pupils at Nottingham Elementary wave miniature American flags during an assembly, during which a portrait of George Washington was unveiled. Lt. Col. Todd Johnson donated the painting and spoke to the school via Skype on Oct. 7.
Friday 10/07/11. Photo by Tony Bullard.

Keith Elementary School volunteer Karri Parlevliet assists fourth-grade student Macy Gunn with hearing and vision screening at the school this week. Parlevliet was one of 15 recipients of the SBOE Heroes for Children award, given Friday at the SBOE meeting in Austin.

Tom Jackson, CFISD Board of Trustees vice president, reads Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table by Jacqueline Briggs Martin to students at Hamilton Elementary School for Read Across the Globe, a volunteer effort geared at setting a new Guinness Record of 300,000 students reading the same book for 30 minutes with a 24-hour period.

Cy-Fair ISD needs school bus drivers for the coming school year. Training is being conducted at the Cypress-Fairbanks ISD Eldridge Center at 7600 N Eldridge Parkway. Melanie Forness, trainee and coach at Cy-Woods High School, left, watches as driver trainer Christine Overby shows how to inspect under the hood before starting a route. Effective Oct. 1, an under-the-hood inspection will be required on the skills test for drivers.

Kenny Thompson, of Feed The Future Forward, left, is greeted by Anh Duong, Harmony Public Schools director of community outreach and communications, at Harmony School for Exploration on Thursday, Jan. 21, 2016, in Houston. Thompson's non-profit organization paid roughly $1,500 to zero-out the lunch debt that about 185 students owed at the school.

Music teacher Sena Ademoglu works with a classroom of kindergartners at Harmony School of Art and Technology. About 70 percent of Harmony students are in K-8, but at the newer campuses, grade levels are being added each year.

Pasadena ISD's Teague Elementary had the most expensive back-to-school supply list for fourth graders out of 50 schools examined by the Chronicle. Parents there could expect to pay about $110.56 for their students' supplies. In this photo, Teague Elementary fourth grade students learn that kindness goes a long way in social situations and when it comes to brain function.

The Chronicle compared back-to-school lists and prices at 49 elementary schools in 17 districts across the Houston area, specifically for fourth-grade students. All prices came from estimates provided by schools, Target school-supply lists or companies that prepared back-to-school packs for individual campuses.

People could save on average up to 15%, that’s according to a study by Wikibuy, a Chrome extension that compares prices.

Media: Brandpoint

Prices ranged from a low of $34.05 for back-to-school supplies at Humble ISD’s Ridge Creek Elementary to $110.56 at Pasadena ISD’s Teague Elementary. On average, the 49 schools’ back-to-school items cost about $61.36.

Two Fort Bend ISD schools and two Harmony Charter schools had among the most expensive supply lists. Harmony School of Achievements supplies could be purchased for $91.99, and Harmony School of Exploration’s supplies cost $90.04. Parents of fourth-graders at Fort Bend ISD’s Schiff Elementary could expect to pay $95.42 for their students’ school supplies, and those at the district’s Cornerstone Elementary could expect to pay about $91.43.

At some campuses, the cost of school supplies depended on a students’ gender.

At Conroe ISD’s Powell Elementary, fourth-grade boys could expect to pay about $56.44 for their school supplies, while girls spent about $54.91. Clear Creek ISD fourth-grade girls at Clear Lake Elementary paid nearly $3 more for their school supplies than their male peers.

Schools in Goose Creek ISD gave parents the option of paying their school $35 for the whole year or $19 per semester for school supplies through a supply contract.

Humble ISD’s four elementary school lists examined by the Chronicle were consistently the least expensive, the most expensive of which at Hidden Hollow Elementary asked families to provide $41.88 worth of school supplies for their students.